Closing the Loop on Engagement: 3 Tips for Turning Employee Survey Data into Actions

With employee engagement sinking to a staggering 10-year low, cultivating an engaged and effective team is more important than ever. Data analytics have become a key part of the solution: companies in all industries are turning to technology to better inform their efforts. Employee surveys are a common source of this data. Employee survey data can help measure the success of company culture factors, including employee satisfaction, absenteeism, turnover rates, and productivity — all of which profoundly influence your staff’s overall engagement.

However, merely gathering the information does not improve any of these areas. Nor does it create engaged employees. Analysis of employee survey data is a crucial next step that helps you consider the state of engagement across your team, department, or enterprise. It can also help you identify weak points.

Awareness alone is insufficient to create a lasting impact. To make meaningful improvements, leaders must act on the insights gathered. This means “closing the loop” on engagement: not only addressing the feedback but also providing managers and teams with tools to implement actions that address the feedback effectively.

Closing the loop ensures that changes are measurable and that employees feel empowered to participate in the process. It also enables organizations to track progress over time without needing to ask employees for additional feedback through repeated surveys.

Mark Sawyier, an expert in company culture and the CEO of Bonfyre, works extensively with organizations to integrate the closed-loop employee engagement process. Sawyier offered some key takeaways from his experience to help leaders identify and implement employee engagement initiatives successfully.

1. Incorporate Small Changes into Daily Interactions

Any meaningful improvement in engagement must start with hands-on leadership. Surveys are a good start, but it’s up to management to use the results to enact positive change. Sawyier points out this can overwhelm a manager, especially if the post-survey action system is convoluted or spread across multiple tools.

“It’s simply too much work to expect managers to execute an action plan in another app that might provide helpful guidance (at best),” he said. “Too often, engagement solutions lack details for the granular ‘week-in week-out’ actions needed and the necessary reminders and tools to take the suggested actions. Often, what ends up happening is that it becomes another ‘check the box’ exercise with limited if any accountability, let alone optimization based on what actually works.”

As an alternative, Sawyier and his team have consolidated the post-survey action process into a single platform. Organizations can feed survey data from any source into the Bonfyre app. It uses AI-driven software to translate it into one or two “action nudges” per week. Managers can act on and complete with a few clicks. This empowers them to be agents of the change they want to see.

Management must be ready to encourage engagement in day-to-day activities proactively. This, coupled with detailed suggestions for implementing improvements based on employee data, can have a synergistic impact.

2. Align Recognition Programs to Target Behaviors

Recognition can boost productivity, bring teams together, and help them stay engaged in their work. It can also increase retention. According to a recent Gallup poll, 45% of well-recognized employees are less likely to turn over within the next two years.

Employee surveys can reveal connections between recognition activities and higher satisfaction or performance scores. They can also help identify which employees or teams receive sufficient recognition and which may need more attention. Using that data to align recognition initiatives with other engagement efforts is key.

Sawyier explained, “Recognition is about aligning rewards to target behaviors, and ‘non-productivity’ behaviors are too often ignored or left out.” He added that in larger settings, it’s hard to know how to focus recognition where it will be the most effective. Tools like Bonfyre can help synthesize the data and identify which areas of the workforce need increased recognition, either in the short term or on an ongoing basis.

“We work with our clients to tailor recognition and incentive programs directly to the employee populations that would have the highest impact,” he said. “For example, we help isolate teams, departments, or roles that carry the highest turnover (and, by extension, rehiring costs). From there, we create ‘stay incentives’ mapped to tenure that can make an impact.”

Recognition is critical and can’t be overlooked due to size or scope. Use employee survey data to identify targeted recognition opportunities. Then, align them with incentives to help reduce turnover and increase employee satisfaction.

3. Leverage Personal Interactions with Hybrid Teams

Recognition is a critical factor in engagement. However, the personalized element of work is hard to scale across large or dispersed teams. Despite management’s ongoing RTO (return-to-office) efforts, hybrid work remains a significant element of the post-pandemic workforce.

While a hybrid workplace has advantages, it can also impact engagement. The geographic and asynchronous reality of hybrid work makes it difficult for teams to stay connected. This is commonly voiced through engagement surveys. The lack of a one-size-fits-all solution exacerbates the problem. As the Bonfyre team highlighted in this case study on employee engagement, hybrid teams require a slightly different approach.

According to Sawyier, hybrid teams typically engage in various asynchronous digital engagement actions, such as recognition, team activities, communications, etc. “It’s important to weave these actions into live, team-level interactions,” explained Sawyier.  “For example, take a few minutes on a weekly recurring team call to pull up the digital recognitions given to your team members and make a point to celebrate them.” These efforts surface personalized and meaningful moments across a company, helping build bonds and enhance morale.

Connection is critical in a decentralized workplace and requires nuanced solutions tailored to the workforce’s unique needs. Maintaining a people-first approach that incorporates both synchronous and asynchronous recognition of employees can improve engagement across hybrid teams.

Closing the Loop on Engagement in 2025

Engagement has been and will continue to be a primary concern for professional teams. In 2025, those teams and their leadership will face unique challenges. However, the solutions remain centered in tried-and-true areas.

Management must adopt a lead-from-the-front approach that prioritizes the detailed application of actionable takeaways. Recognition must remain central to engagement efforts, and personal connection points must be at the forefront for both in-office and hybrid teams.

Leaders can use employee survey data to develop practical and effective answers. This allows them to reap the benefits of a highly engaged workforce while navigating their teams through the rapidly changing, often decentralized, modern corporate landscape.

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